University of Pennsylvania History Faculty

AMERICAN CULTURE AND IDENTITY

Sheldon Hackney

He is an expert on the civil-rights movement and the 1960s in general. He had written and spoken on higher education, national cultural policy and the state of the humanities as well as on American identity since Sept. 11. Dr. Hackney is at work on a book about American identity from pre-colonial days to the present.

Michael Zuckerman

He is an expert in popular culture, national character, human nature and religion. He has written on subjects such as democracy, family life, business, American identity, the Constitution, religion, the university, children's rights, race and the role of ideas in history.

SOCIAL WELFARE

Michael Katz

He is an expert in American social history. His research and writing are focused on the history of education, the history of urban social and family structure and the history of poverty and social welfare. His latest book is "In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America."

INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE ON WAR AND DIPLOMACY

Bruce Kuklick

He is an expert in the political, diplomatic and intellectual history of the United States and in the philosophy of history. He has written eight books, among them one on baseball, "To Every Thing A Season," and "A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000." His latest project, "War and the Intellectuals, 1945-75", is an examination of how various social scientists and scholars of strategic studies and international relations have understood war and the ways it should be avoided or fought ,if necessary.

CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE SIXTIES

Thomas Sugrue

He is an expert on 20th-century American political, urban and social history. He is author of "The Origins of the Urban Crisis," a study of race and inequality in postwar Detroit, and co-editor of "W.E.B. DuBois, Race, and the City," with Michael B. Katz. He has also published many scholarly articles on a wide range of topics including deindustrialization, race and labor, liberalism and grassroots conservatism, the history of America in the 1950s, poverty and public policy and affirmative action. His current research interests include the history of civil-rights politics in the urban North, the U.S. in the 1960s and liberalism and anti-liberalism from the 1930s to the present. He is also writing a general history of 20th-century America.

NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY

Daniel Richter

He is an expert on colonial North America and on Native American history before 1800. He is the author of "The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization" and "Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America."

EAST ASIAN DIPLOMACY AND HISTORY

Arthur Waldron

He is an expert on Chinese history, particularly the period from the late Qing to the early Communist period. Dr. Waldron has also published on Asian diplomacy. He is also interested in how war affects participants and society, transforming institutions, social relations, even culture and the arts.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Alan Charles Kors

He is an expert on the European intellectual history of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a special concern for the intellectual transformation of France after 1650. His research projects include the history of French atheism in the 17th and 18th centuries and the Enlightenment in general, serving as editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Edward Peters

He is an expert of the history of Europe from the second to the 17th centuries. His chief interests are political and constitutional history, including church history, intellectual and legal history and historiography. His current research deals with various aspects of crime and punishment and also with the idea of curiosity and the limits of intellectual inquiry.

MODERN MIDDLE EAST

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet

She is an expert in the history of the modern Middle East, the Ottoman Empire and Iran. She is the author of "Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946" and "Hallmarks of Humanism: Hygiene and Love of Homeland in Qajar Iran."

MEDIA AND HISTORY

Barbara Savage

She is an expert on media history, 20th-century African-American history; the history of the relationship between media and politics and the history of American social-reform movements. She is the author of "Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948." She is currently writing a book on the relationship between African-American religion and politics.

RELIGION AND HISTORY, LAW AND RELIGION, MORMONISM

Sarah Barringer Gordon

She is an expert on the Mormon religion and polygamy, American religious history, law and religion and legal history. Her research focuses on the 19th century and the fields of constitutional law, church and state and gender.